


Febuwhump 2021 No. 3

by Sapless_Tree



Series: MacGyver Febuwhump [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Beating, Febuwhump, Febuwhump 2021, Gen, Imprisonment, Jack is mostly mentioned but he has like one line at the end, Whump, concussion, macgyver whump, restrained, the second is very vaguely implied but still there, warning for mentions of human trafficking and implied cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29058381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapless_Tree/pseuds/Sapless_Tree
Summary: Febuwhump No. 3Prompt: imprisonmentThere were a lot of ‘what the hell?’ moments working with the Phoenix Foundation, and this was just one of many.Mac pushed himself upright; sitting up sent another wave of dizziness through him. He tugged again at the restaurants, trying to loosen his wrists enough to slip out of the rope. All he succeeded in doing was rubbing his wrists raw and digging splinters of rope fiber into his skin.
Series: MacGyver Febuwhump [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137668
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Febuwhump 2021 No. 3

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags! <33
> 
> I didn't put a rating on this one because I wasn't sure what to put it as. It’s a tad more graphic than my usual content, but I wasn't sure if it qualified for 'extreme violence' because it's hardly the worst thing I've ever written.

Mac’s head throbbed as struggled again against the ropes holding his wrists in place behind his back. 

Bad intel was inevitable; sources of information varied greatly in their reliability, but most of the time, it was in the minute details. Five guards instead of two, a meeting time would be moved up last minute, or new information on a target would be revealed. 

It was just the nature of the job. It forced them all to adapt and improvise-- Mac liked that aspect of the job, being able to make real change, help _real_ people, while also implementing what he did best. 

He tugged at the restraints again. 

Never had bad intel landed him tied up in the back of an ice cream truck before, though. Guess there was a first time for everything. 

When the informant for this op had reported large quantities of ‘ice’ being shipped for unknown purposes, it had made the most sense to assume they meant the drug, not _literal_ ice. Dry ice, to be more specific. There was nothing illegal about traveling with dry ice so long as it was packaged and marked properly. There was, however, probably something _very_ illegal about knocking the guy questioning you unconscious, and tying him up in the back of your truck. 

So the target wasn’t smuggling drugs, as far as Phoenix knew, and wasn’t doing anything wrong by transporting dry ice. So getting kidnapped left Mac more confused than anything (though, that could have been the concussion, too).

Back there with him were a double-doored freezer and a chest freezer, but where there would normally have been a countertop, containers, or a sink, there were instead several large coolers. And, based on the slow, faint plumes of carbon dioxide visibly coming from the loose cooler seals, they were filled with dry ice. The freezers were fully sealed, however, so it wasn’t likely that there was more dry ice in those.

Mac wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the back of the truck. He had only woken up a few minutes ago, but had no way to tell how long he’d been out. Mac’s phone, comms, and knife were gone, and the guy had had enough time to thoroughly tie him up and move him into the back of the truck. 

That information didn’t narrow down the timetable much. 

It was dark. Dim emergency lights were the only thing illuminating the small space.

The back of the truck didn’t have windows that Mac could see, and the front portion where the driver was had been secluded off with a metal wall and door. One side of the truck had a paneled section, likely that could open, functioning similarly to a garage door. And there was a vent towards the ceiling of the truck. Mac assumed that it severed to let some of the carbon dioxide out of the truck so that neither he nor the driver would suffocate.

While the vent kept him from asphyxiating, there was still a lot of dry ice in that small space. Judging by the fact that Mac was still pulling at the restraints instead of hanging halfway out the back of the truck already, it either meant this guy knew what he was doing when tying restraints, or the fumes were making him a little more than just woozy. Maybe both.

There were a lot of ‘ _what the hell?_ ’ moments working with the Phoenix Foundation, and this was just one of many.

Mac pushed himself upright; sitting up sent another wave of dizziness through him. He tugged again at the restaurants, trying to loosen his wrists enough to slip out of the rope. All he succeeded in doing was rubbing his wrists raw and digging splinters of rope fiber into his skin.

Shifting himself slowly across the floor of the truck, Mac got closer to the back-- the opening to the outside wasn’t closed by a sliding side-door, but by two doors that opened up the back of the truck on hinges. Mac kicked at the doors, hoping to pop it open and get out that way.

Another hard kick and Mac could hear the distinct sound of a padlock bouncing off the exterior of the truck. So the back was locked from the outside, then. Mac shuffled himself over to the undercounter freezer, facing his back to it to open one of its two doors. He used the metal latch of the freezer door to cut through his ropes.

Pulling the ropes off of himself with a huff, Mac turned to look at the freezer. The only thing in there was raw meat-- each wire shelf was filled to the brim with it. Moving with a bit of a lightheaded stumble, he checked the chest freezer and found the same thing, more meat. He couldn’t quite place the cuts off the top of his head, but there was a lot of it and all of them were labeled with a different number.

Now he was really confused. 

He knew he should be putting his efforts into escaping, but he couldn’t help but wonder why his kidnapper would have so much frozen, raw meat and several coolers of dry ice. It was strange, by the sheer quantity of it, but not technically unlawful. Even stranger that he’d transport it in an ice cream truck, but again, weird didn’t necessarily mean illegal. 

The only thing they had on the guy was that he’d kidnapped Mac, which was definitely serious, but not exactly what they’d been expecting going into the op. It just didn’t seem to add up.

Mac teetered over to the paneled section on the side-- a roller service window-- and tugged at it. It, too, was locked. Mac banged his fists against it a few times before deeming that a lost cause. 

The only door he hadn’t tried was the one leading into the driver’s section of the truck. Mac grabbed the ropes (better than opening up the door to his kidnapper unarmed) and grasped the handle of the door. He took a second to prepare himself before trying it. Locked. He probably could have guessed as much.

Mac let go of the rope and started to look around the space for something to pick the locks with. There wasn’t anything immediately obvious-- the truck had been thoroughly cleared out aside from the essentials to keep the meat and ice stored properly.

Opening one of the coolers, Mac found that there was nothing in them except the dry ice. They were in pellets, so there might’ve been other things towards the bottom, but Mac knew better than to go searching through it with his bare hands. He opened a few of the other coolers, each one of them contained nothing but ice. 

Mac stumbled over the rope he’d left lying on the ground, a hand flew out to the wall of the truck to steady him. The floor swayed beneath him and his head throbbed anew. The ache seemed localized to one spot, so gingerly, he touched a hand to the main source of pain. His hand came back tinged red. _Great_.

Leaning his back heavily against the wall, Mac let himself slide down to sit. His eyes fluttered closed, only for a moment, just to think. But they stayed closed, and even if Mac tried to convince himself it was so he could think more clearly without being distracted by his surroundings, he knew he wouldn’t be opening them back up until he had to.

\---

The truck jolted to a stop suddenly, jostling Mac into a rough, hazy awareness. He blearily blinked his eyes open as noises filtered into his senses. The driver opened the driver-seat door and closed it again. Someone was walking around the side of the truck and then was at the padlock at the back of the truck.

Blinding light assaulted Mac as the back was thrown open. He squeezed his eyes shut against it.

Before he could even squint his eyes open again, people were getting into the back of the truck with him. Boots loud against the metal floor, they came close and grasped Mac by the arms, dragging him up and leading him roughly out of the back of the truck.

Mac cracked his eyes open, everything looking blurry and distorted in the bright light; two or three people were bringing him into some kind of building, and there were more people heading into the truck to retrieve the coolers of dry ice and the meat.

The lights inside the building weren’t any more forgiving than the sun had been, but his eyes were beginning to adjust a little as the men led him down a few hallways and into a large room. 

Once there, Mac was stripped down to nothing but his underwear. They took his height and weight. One person held his arm straight out, and someone else began taking pictures-- of each of his arms held out like that, front and back-- of his bare torso and stomach, of each leg, his ass. 

Panic edged into his slow consciousness as they took the pictures. He could only come to one conclusion for the behaviors. Human trafficking. The meat must have been to feed whoever else was trapped here, and the ice to store it.

Mac had half a mind to struggle away from the person who had posed each of his limbs for the photographs, wrenching away hard from the hands holding, _touching_ him. 

They tried to keep him under control, hands grabbing, pulling as he fought to get away. An arm hooked around his throat, obstructing his breathing. Mac’s hands flew up the arm instinctively as his airway constricted. He threw his head back hard, bashing it against the man’s nose. There was a wet, satisfying _crunch_ and a shout. The arm was gone just as soon as it had come.

A swift kick to the abdomen had Mac doubling over, but he was stopped from hitting the floor by a hand in his hair. One of the men had grasped a fistful of blond and yanked him up by it. Mac tried to bite back the yelp of pain, so little more than a hurt squeak made it past his lips.

Mac kicked out behind him gracelessly, hoping to hit a body, but he merely flailed a moment before there were more men on him, holding him as still as they could. 

One of them had blood streaming from each nostril-- the one Mac had headbutted. That man came around front, geared up, and connected his fist solidly with Mac’s jaw. He drew back and punched again, and again a third time. 

Mac lost count after five or six, but the punishment seemed to last forever. Warm, sticky blood dripped from his own nose and from a shallow cut above his eyebrow. One punch caught his eye, making it spurt involuntary tears; though, the painful way his hair yanked against his scalp each time he was held still for a hit didn’t help either. 

By the time it had ended, Mac’s nose was just as broken as the man’s, and in addition to the eye slowly swelling shut, he was sure there was a whole mess of other bruises forming along his jaw and cheekbones. 

The ordeal left him dazed. He was already concussed from before, and certainly being beat didn’t help in that department. If there was any bright side to the whole thing, it was that they’d probably have trouble selling him with his face swollen, bruised, and bloodstained.

The men began dragging Mac out of the large room down another series of hallways-- it seemed almost labyrinthine as they turned different corners and manhandled him down a flight of stairs. They approached a door and stopped Mac in front of it. His arm was held out again, and in thick, permanent ink, the number thirty-eight was written on his skin. 

The door was opened, and Mac was met with another room, no less dirty than the others, but this one had two other people in it. They were both marked with numbers as well.

Herded into the room, Mac’s weak attempts to struggle were useless. He was thrust at the floor and left there-- the men that had brought him in exited, locking the door behind them. 

Mac was content to just lie there where he had been tossed. His head hurt too bad to even think about moving, and his whole face throbbed in tandem with the pulsating pain coming from the back of his head where he’d found blood earlier.

There were footsteps-- someone coming closer to him, likely one of the others in the room with him, but Mac couldn’t bring himself to care too much.

“Let’s get you off the floor, okay?” A woman’s voice spoke. Mac cracked his eyes open to see a girl, maybe a few years older than he. Her kind brown eyes reminded him of Jack. 

Mac merely hummed in permission and let the woman help him up off the ground. In the room with them was a small toilet and a sink; she guided the two of them towards it. The woman sat Mac down on the edge of the seat-- there was no cover on the toilet bowl-- and turned the sink on.

“This may hurt a little,” she warned, running her hands under the water. Gently, she washed away some of the blood on his face with her hands; she and the other man in the room were just as naked as he was, so she couldn’t wet a cloth unless she wanted to strip the rest of the way down. She started with the cut above his eyebrow, wiping away the trail of blood with wet fingers and running her hands in the water again when she got too much blood on them.

She was wiping away the blood under his nose when she spoke again. “My name is Natascha,” she said. “And over there,” she motioned to the other person in the room, “is Luis.”

Natascha pulled her hands away, seemingly done wiping off his face for him. She ran her hands under the water again and started at the blood that had trailed down his neck.

“I’m Mac,” he said. “How long have you guys been here?” 

“A while, I guess,” she brought her finger and prodded at the back of his head where the bleeding was coming from. He winced and she pulled away quickly. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said.

“Can you stand over the sink? I think we should clean some of that out of your hair.”

Mac nodded and stood, using the sink to steady himself before carefully bending over and letting the water run over his hair. Natascha helped, separating some of the blood-matted bits of hair to make it easier to wash out.

“Do you happen to know what day it is?” She asked once he brought his head out of the sink. “We can’t tell time very well here.” Mac looked around-- no windows. 

Mac put his wrists under the water, trying to flush out some of the rope splinters. “Last I checked it was the twenty-second. But they transported me for a while-- I’m not sure how long. It was nighttime when it happened, but light out when I was brought inside. It’s probably the twenty-third, assuming we only traveled through the night.” 

“That would put us around two weeks,” Natascha said, “the two of us were taken together from a friend’s party.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, this shouldn't have happened to you guys.” 

“You neither,” she said softly.

Satisfied with the work on his wrists, Mac turned the sink off. “Do you know where we are?”

“We think we’re still in Arizona,” she answered.

“Arizona? I’m from California.” It was quiet for a moment before Mac looked at the number thirty-eight scrawled on his arm. “Do you know anything about this?” He asked, motioning to the number.

“No,” she said, “but we’ve both got one. Luis is thirty-six, and I’m thirty-seven. Do you know what it means?”

Mac looked her in the eyes, then stole a glance at Luis. There was fear-- he could see it, they were terrified to their cores. But they deserved to know. “I think they’re identification numbers. And that the people who brought us here are going to,” he paused trying to think of the gentlest way to put it, but there was no gentle way to word it. “They’re going to sell us.”

Luis wrapped his arms around himself.

“You mean, like…” Natascha rubbed at her watery eyes, “for sex?” 

“Or labor,” Mac said as if that made it any better. He knew it didn’t. “I don’t think we’re the only ones here, though. I think there’s at least thirty-five other people somewhere in this building, otherwise, why wouldn’t they have started the numbering at one?” He said. “And in the truck they transported me in, there was a lot of meat-- as if they were going to try and feed many people.”

“Meat? What are you talking about?” Luis finally spoke up. “They don’t give us any meat.”

“They bring a vegetable broth and some bread for us,” Natascha said. “I don’t know if it’s every day or a couple times a day, but they haven’t starved us. We drink the water from the sink.”

As if summoned by the conversation, the door was unlocked and a man came in. He left them each a serving of thick, vegetable broth and a piece of stale bread. The broth was lukewarm and chunky, but Luis was right, there wasn’t any meat in it. It left Mac once again confused as he ate.

\---

Days passed-- Mac had taken to counting how many times the food was brought to them and using Jack’s age-old trick of telling time by how much his facial hair grew. He figured out that food was brought to them twice a day, and that the same two men would bring it to them-- one in the morning, and one in the evening. From there, Mac could assume that they had someone outside the door at all times on rotation.

In that time, Mac was able to reset his nose; it was a painful, bloody process, but it made it much easier to breathe. His eye had swelled completely shut with bruising. As for the others, he got to know them a little bit more as they spent time trapped together.

He learned that the party they’d been taken from was for a friend’s birthday, and that they’d left early after a fight. They seemed emotional about it-- wondering if that fight would be the last time they spoke to that friend. Mac assured them it wouldn’t be. Luis and Natacha were a couple-- on and off it seemed, but they were on right now (they’d been off at the time of the party). 

The three of them had a system with the bathroom, the other two turning away when anyone needed to use it, and they were able to keep themselves relatively clean with a quick rinse in the sink every couple of days. 

The three were trying to pass the time when Mac spoke. “The lift rods from the toilet-- I think I could unlock the door with them.”

Luis, who had been laying on the floor, complaining about trying to sleep for a while now, sat upright. “You what?” The disbelief was evident in his voice.

“I was looking in the toilet’s tank a little while ago and the flush mechanism uses lift rods. If I took them out, I think I could use them to unlock the door.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Luis asked. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“It’s not that simple,” Mac said, “they very likely have someone outside that door at all times to make sure that we don’t try anything. We should wait until the next time they bring us food-- we can knock the guy out with the tank’s lid since he won’t be expecting us.”

Natascha nodded along, “that will give us some time before the next rotation.”

“Exactly,” Mac said. “And we can sneak out then.”

“What happens if it doesn’t work?” Luis asked, voice wavering. 

The room was quiet; they all already knew the answer to that question. “It’ll work,” Mac said simply.

Judging by the amount of time since they’d been fed last, there shouldn’t have been anyone coming for another few hours at least. But the three could hear the door suddenly being unlocked. Mac wanted to hope that maybe Phoenix had found them, but he knew it was more likely one of them had finally been bought. 

The three stood, on high alert. 

The door swung open and a man they didn’t recognize came in, closing the door behind him. A buyer, perhaps? It definitely wasn’t one of the two that had been bringing them food. The man approached them, eyeing each number with care before stopping at Luis. Natascha held on tight to his arm, and Mac put himself between them and the man.

Mac was sent careening roughly to the side and crashed to the floor with a solid punch and Luis was yanked from Natascha’s grasp. There was a sickening _pop_ and a scream as the man wrenched Luis’s arm out of its socket. 

Natascha made a move to lunge at the man, but he flicked out a knife. Natascha held herself back, eyes frantic and welling with tears as the knife was held against Luis’s throat.

“Don’t hurt him!” Natascha shouted. “Please!” 

It was so fast. Mac stood, the knife moved, and horrible gurgling filled the room. Hot blood splashed onto the ground. Natascha was screaming Luis’s name. There was red everywhere.

The man waited, bleeding Luis out in front of them. The wet, choking noises died down, and just as quickly as the man came, he was gone, dragging Luis’s lifeless body along with him. There was only the sound of the body being dragged getting quieter, and Natascha’s loud wails.

The poor girl’s knees buckled, landing her right in a puddle of blood. Mac debated letting her have a moment, thinking it best to leave her be. Despite being stuck with them for days, he still didn’t _really_ know Luis or Natascha, not like they knew each other. But the kindness she showed him when he’d first been tossed into the room came into his mind.

He came close, crouching down next to her shaking, sobbing form. Blood was getting all over her knees. Mac tentatively put a hand on her back, trying to respect her space and offer comfort at the same time. She took to it immediately, wrapping herself in Mac’s arms and sobbing into his neck. He talked quietly, giving her soft soothing words to ground herself with.

Mac couldn’t calm her down but had at least gotten through to her enough that she allowed herself to be let up from the bloodied ground and guided to the sink to get the blood off of her bare skin. Natascha was talking to herself, Mac caught the words ‘love’ and ‘escape’ but decidedly tuned them out, so as not to eavesdrop on her grief.

Maybe if he hadn’t stood up when he did, that man wouldn’t have killed Luis. 

If Jack were there he probably would have told Mac he couldn’t think that way. 

“ _Blamin’ yourself for something you can’t change ain’t gonna help anybody, hoss. You’re just gonna make yourself miserable,_ ” he would have said.

And Mac would have argued back. “ _He’s dead because of something I did. It sure as hell feels like it’s my fault._ ”

His mind’s eye Jack was stumped, but Mac knew that Jack would have known exactly what to say. He would know just the words that would absolve Mac of some of the guilt, he'd have just the right gentle touch to comfort. _God_ he missed Jack.

Even after finishing at the sink, Natascha still cried-- long and hard, too. Mac didn’t once tell her to quiet. She clung to him like a lifeline, and Mac, knowing that feeling all too well, held her. After a long time, once she had tapered off to exhausted sniffles, Natascha spoke up suddenly.

“Do you really think we’re going to be able to escape?” She asked, looking at Mac for the first time since she had begun crying. Her eyes were puffy and red, and the tear tracks had left salty stains on her face.

Mac didn’t know the answer to that. “I do,” he said, he hoped he wasn’t lying.

Natascha nodded, resting her head on his shoulder. “I want to tell his family what happened. I want all of these people in jail, for good.”

“You’ll be able to,” Mac said. “And as soon as we’re out of here, these guys are never going to see the light of day again.”

“Good,” she replied.

And so they waited as the room stunk of death for their food to be brought. 

Time passed slowly, and it was a somber sort of quiet. Natascha didn’t seem like she was in the mood to talk; Mac didn’t blame her. 

Hours went by, and finally, the door unlocked once again. The man came in, left them their food, and walked out. The two sprung into action the second he closed the door. 

Mac grabbed the lid off of the toilet’s tank and yanked the lift rods out of the tank. Tucking the lid under his arms, he took the rods to the door and turned to Natascha.

“Are you ready?” He asked quietly. She nodded, and he got to work on the lock. It was an easy, simple thing, and he had it unlocked in a second. Tossing the rods off to the side, Mac got a better grip on the lid and opened the door. 

The man turned at the sound, but before he could register what was happening, Mac cracked him over the head with the lid, knocking him out cold. Silently, the two made their way through the twisting hallways the best they could. They lucked out for a little while, not seeing much of anybody else, and when they did happen to see another person, they were able to duck around a corner to avoid them.

One of the doors down a certain hallway was ajar; the two gravitated towards it and found that inside someone had abandoned something on a table only midway through packaging it. There was raw, bloody meat on the table. Half of it had been wrapped and packaged, looking ready for sale. Mac found it odd but wasn’t alarmed until he noticed the sticker slapped on the packaged bits. Thirty-six. That was the number Luis had had on his arm.

Mac thought he was going to be sick.

These people weren’t human traffickers at all, no wonder they didn’t mind beating his face in. And in the truck-- the meat that had been in the freezers there-- those had all been labeled with numbers as well. The dry ice wasn’t for storage, it was for _shipping_ the meat out. Those other thirty-five people were most certainly dead.

“What is it?” Natascha whispered, noticing the horrified, disgusted look Mac gave to the flesh. She hadn’t worked it out yet, and Mac wanted to keep it that way, spare her of knowing who was on that table in pieces. He shook his head a little, motioning for her to leave the room. She did, and he followed after.

They wandered for a while longer, feeling hopeful after they ascended a flight of stairs, and only twice having to use the toilet tank’s lid again. By sheer luck, one of the doors they tried was an exit. There was an empty car parked a little ways away-- there was no cover between them and it besides the darkness of early evening, but they couldn’t see anybody else out there.

“When I say, you run to the car. I’m going to get it unlocked and running. And then we’ll be out of here,” Mac said. “Ready?” Natascha nodded. “Now.”

Hearts thudding practically out of their chests, the two sprinted to the car. Mac broke the window of the driver’s side with the tank lid before discarding the thing. He took a quick, wild look behind him to see if anyone had heard. 

Mac unlocked the door, then got in and leaned over to unlock the other side as well. While Natascha got in and closed the door behind her, Mac hotwired the car.

Within a minute, the car was tearing down the road, away from the horrible building they’d been trapped in for days. Both Mac and Natascha were breathing hard, coming down from the adrenaline. Natascha actually laughed, and Mac couldn’t help but join in; the relief of all the stress built up over the past few days felt wonderful. 

“What now?” Natascha asked, sobering. “Oh, God, _what now_? Where do we go? We’re both practically naked, and-- and we don’t even know where we are.”

The questions got Mac serious as well. “Now, we find a phone,” Mac said. “Can you check if there’s one in the back, or if there are some clothes?”

Natascha stepped over the center console to look. “No phone, but there’s a shirt and a pair of pants back here.”

“You take the shirt,” Mac said. “It might be big enough to cover you completely. You see those lights on the horizon?” Mac said, pointing in the distance.

“Yeah, kinda,” she said, pulling the shirt over her head.

“That’s got to be a town. We can use someone’s phone there-- a store or gas station.”

“Okay, so we find a phone,” Natascha said, climbing back up to the front seat and leaving the pants on the center console for Mac. “Who do we call?”

“I know someone who can help us.”

It took them almost an hour before they entered into town; by then it was dark out, shops had all turned on their neon signs and street lamps illuminated the road. Mac pulled the car into the parking space of a small fabric store. 

He pulled the pants on-- they didn’t fit, much too loose around his waist and baggy around the ankles, but it was the most clothing he’d worn in days. Natascha drowned in her clothing too, it was less of a t-shirt and more of a dress, reaching halfway down her thighs.

The two got out of the car, sticking close to one another as they entered the store. They went straight to the checkout counter. 

The woman welcomed them, but stopped part of the way through her greeting at the sight of them. The pair were barely clothed, wearing only ill-fitting garments that obviously never belonged to either of them. Mac’s eye was still swollen shut, and even though he’d set it, his nose was still bruised horribly. Natascha’s cheeks were still tear-stained, and the grief was still evident all over her face. The woman at the counter would say the two looked downright scared to death.

“Oh, my, what _ever_ happened to you two?”

Mac spoke up for them, “please. Can we use your phone?”

“Of course,” she said, giving it to Mac. 

He dialed the familiar number, the one he was sure he could dial in his sleep. It rang a few times, and Mac was worried it would ring out to the voicemail recording. But the other line clicked, and he was met with a “who is this?”

Mac smiled with relief at the voice, wanting to melt right then and there with how happy he was to hear it.

“Jack,” Mac breathed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope the little twist of them not being human traffickers wasn't too _too_ obvious. I tried to hint at it, but I'm not positive how it came across. 
> 
> This freaking fic started out as Mac getting stuffed in a suitcase, but that obviously got scrapped, so maybe I'll use that little idea later, hm?


End file.
